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m.richards
Reviews
The Last Patrol (2000)
I watched this movie so you don't have to.
Question. How do you tell when a movie is really bad?
1: The hero is an ex-Green Beret rebelling against the system.
2: It has the hackneyed plotline that the world has ended and only a few exceptional people can save the day. This genre was old when 'Mad Max' rumbled on to the screens, but its still being churned out with ever-decreasing budgets. After all, any wannabe director just needs a camera; a few friends decked out in army surplus, some beat up vehicles and a free weekend in the desert. Add suitably ruined industrial plants and bad acting to taste and you are on the way to video immortality.
The big budget productions feature kickboxing cyborgs.
The Last Patrol has no kickboxing cyborgs.
3: Voiceovers to explain the plot. Studios tack these on after the movie is edited when they realise what a complete hash they have on their hands.. A good movie doesn't need someone bored out of their mind reading lines into a microphone.
Unless they're Humphry Bogart - and he's dead.
4: It has a urine-drinking scene. There is an episode of BlackAdder where they attempt to sail round the world. Things become so desperate they have to drink their own urine. The same thing happens about halfway through The Last Patrol - I was tempted to join in the onscreen misery.
5: When the 'making of' feature and publicity materials don't feature the lead actor. Something happened during the production and they no longer want to be associated with it as it may hurt future work. In retrospect that was a very wise move Mr. Lundgren, possibly a little late, but a good idea none the less.
At this point I should make it clear I like bad movies. there is nothing like a good cheap movie to round off a Friday night. The Last Patrol even starts of promisingly. A massive earthquake (illustrated by spectacular special effects lifted straight out of 'Dante's Peak' hits California. An isolated military base in the high desert is cut off from civilisation. Somehow Dolph Lundgren (playing the part of an ex Green Beret who rebelled against the yadda. yadda.) must keep things together and rebuild civilisation.
At this point the movie takes its inspiration from the plot and everything falls apart.
The scriptwriter had a bad attack of writers' block, reached into the cliché cupboard and grabbed *everything*.
So, the commander is suitably heroic and square jawed. He's suitably macho to handle the action, but in touch with his feminine side when he needs to talk to children. The troops are rebellious, (but never mutinous); there is a bubble-headed useless blonde stripper to get in the way and a power-mad maniac out to take over the world. Would you even believe that there is a gratuitous excuse for a shower scene? Oh you would. you are way ahead of me.
All these characters (and I use the term loosely) are thrown into what passes for a plot featuring shifts in the Earth's axis, genetic mutations, plagues, private prisons and someone in communion with God. (No really!)
If it was a couple of minutes long, The Last Patrol might make an interesting trailer - after all they aren't meant to explain anything. A good trailer makes lots of noise, raises questions about the plot and draws in the audience. At 100 minutes, The Last Patrol is one hell of a long trailer - unless (and this is a scary thought) this is the teaser for an entire series of post apocalyptic fun.
Usually reviews are meant to concentrate on scripting and acting - I can't be that cruel to the cast. They had bad lines and they did a lousy job.
Special effects? Well if you've seen Dante's Peak you've already seen the best of them. The rest is the usual cheap prosthetics left over from the Halloween clearance sale and things exploding for no very good reason.
The producers didn't even choose a very nice piece of desert. In most of these movies you can amuse yourself by looking out for that strange rock where Captain Kirk once fought the lizard man. Not here.
Somehow this mess cost $8.2 million. I'm not sure where the money could have gone. Perhaps they each had a couple of drinks from the hotel minibar?
So is there anything positive to say about The Last Patrol? Ummm. there is a very sweet child who actually doesn't get on your nerves and a golden retriever with a natural talent that shines through and puts everyone else to shame.
Anything else? No not really, I just hope everyone got a good tan in the desert.
Any recommendations? To Mr Lundgren; get a new agent. To the kid; it's not too late to change your name, your secret is safe with me - no one else will ever know that you were in this film. To the rest of the cast; overacting is not the same as acting really hard. To the dog; pick your roles more carefully in future, no one likes failure in Hollywood and you do want to work again.
Final thoughts?
Needs kickboxing cyborgs.
EDtv (1999)
Fun, not too demanding, NOT 'The Truman Show'
Since everyone has commented on this movie's resemblance or otherwise to 'The Truman Show', I'll skip that.
The UK has been awash with docusoaps for the last couple of years. We've had families, driving instructors, airport staff and the catering corps is the only unit in the military that hasn't been given its own series.
EdTV is the logical endpoint of this - what if the cameras kept rolling, there was no commentary and most importantly, what if there was no editor? Would people watch? For most of us, I doubt it, but that wouldn't make much of a movie. So the writers and producers have contrived a dysfunctional family and a good-looking lead. Whilst I couldn't hope to take the lead, I could recognise enough in Ed's family to make me cringe - I'm sure most people could see something of their own lives in the characters.
After that, its left to meander to a satisfying conclusion. This is largely thanks to a natural-sounding script - not so funny as to jolt you out of the 'reality', but just funny enough to keep you chuckling.
Most of the cast either play themselves or characters that we can recognise from our own experiences. However, particular credit to Matthew McConaughey who comes across as the nice-but-dim guy the producers of a real show would want; and also to Martin Landau - in a handful of lines he steals the movie.
Gripes? No, not really, although the product placement appeared to be a little too prominent for my tastes, but I guess that's the way television is made these days as well.
If anyone thinks that events in EdTv couldn't be driven by the media, they should check out how the UK press turned 'normal' people in the docusoaps into minor stars. EdTv handles these issues quite well without becoming overly excited.
And that's how EdTv comes across - not overly excited. It often doesn't feel like a movie - more a glossily produced piece of television. It won't change your life but you'll have fun for a couple of hours.
And now what do I read? Channel 4 in the UK wants to run a 24/7 docusoap and has been inundated with potential Eds... stay tuned, EdTv might be coming to your neighbourhood soon.
Gattaca (1997)
Gloriously different science fiction
How many science fiction movies have been made in the last decade? Thousands... now how many of them actually bothered to do a little science reading before hand? Almost none of them.
Gattaca is different - you know that as soon as the credits rolls at the start, there is the music, a beautifully simple and emotional piece by Michael Nyman; the opening graphics with their cool blue colour scheme seem to have come from an arts movie and then the movie starts.
Gattaca is a discussion of the genie of genetic engineering that we are about to unleash. We will soon have the power to make our children into the people we always wished to be. Provided we are rich enough to pay the bills. Those who can't afford it, will become an underclass, almost a different species - apartheid through science. What if we are on of Gattaca's In-valids but we want to be one of the chosen few?
Gattaca has a side-plot about a murder that is used to drive the narrative, but to be honest it isn't terribly well thought through and could have been left out - the main storyline is more than good enough to keep your attention.
The acting is excellent all the way from the two leads to the bit parts. The look and feel of the movie is outstanding. Gattaca's world is the future as dreamed in 1950s corporate America, where spacemen go to work in streamlined cars to their Frank Lloyd Wright offices, dressed in identical pin-stripe suits with their hair slicked back. Everything is washed in a pale golden light that first makes you think of utopia, but then you notice the clinically clean lines and surfaces, the movie is set in a cold emotionless place.
Perhaps most noteable is the movie's restraint - the usual staples of sex and violence are largely avoided and the special effects sit unobtrusively in the background. And the movie is all the better for it.
Try Gattaca one evening, sit down with a drink, watch it, drink slowly and enjoy. You'll be thinking slightly differently at the end.